


(the son and heir of) nothing in particular

by sapph0



Series: diner/college/nyc au [1]
Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: College AU, M/M, New York AU, Two AM In A Diner Is An Alien Planet, i'm fine!, wrote this instead of talking to other humans lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:47:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25697551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapph0/pseuds/sapph0
Summary: “So, uh, what brings you here?” Richard gestures at their neon-lit tiled surroundings.“If I said nothing, would you believe me?”“No. Nobody goes to a diner at two in the morning without a reason, Jared.”
Relationships: Jared Dunn/Richard Hendricks
Series: diner/college/nyc au [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882900
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26





	(the son and heir of) nothing in particular

**Author's Note:**

> title is from How Soon Is Now? by The Smiths. yes i'm anti-morrissey, yes the smiths slap, no i will not be taking any questions.  
> this fic is dedicated to the diner with the good curly fries that had to close because of covid... i will miss you and all of your health violations dearly...

“What would you like doll,” A waitress in her sixties with _very_ red lipstick and a nametag that reads _Meredith_ asks him.

“Oh, uh, just like, a whole pot of coffee please. And some waffle fries.” Richard does his best to smile.

Meredith smiles back at him. “Long night, huh? I’ve been there.”

She leaves, and Richard finds himself alone. 

At the beginning of the semester, he thought it would be a great idea to capitalize on his anxiety fueled insomnia and take a class that might make him feel a bit _less_ like a corporate taskrabbit in the making. That’s how he found himself listening to Professor Donnelly lecture on ethics twice a week, at two in the morning. 

Richard thought that this class would _help_ him, but instead it just makes him feel more and more numb to the world, like now that he’s able to see all the flaws he feels even more helpless and it gets less and less worth it to get out of bed every day.

So he didn't. Not today, at least. 

And then when his alarm rang through his dorm at two in the morning, he did. However instead of going to the lecture hall, he picked up his wallet, keys, and ID and headed straight towards the nearest 24/7 diner. 

There is something strange about being in a diner at two in the morning, and Richard kind of likes it. It is a feeling of being known, he can look anyone else in the eye and go _you too, huh?_ and they'd just get it. It’s like being stuck inside a void, but the void is _Nighthawks_ by Edward Hopper.

“Excuse me?” A quiet voice pipes up behind him. 

Richard turns around, and in the booth next to his there’s a boy about his age, maybe a year or two older, dressed in a shirt that’s somehow oversized despite the fact that he is taller than anyone Richard has ever seen. Or maybe he’s just really lanky. He has a bowl of oatmeal, and it looks like he's been crying.

“Me?” Richard asks.

“Yes,” The boy nods. “Look I know this is a longshot and technically computers and jukeboxes have nothing to do with each other, but you’re a CS major, right?” He says.

“I - I am,” Richard responds tentatively, “but how did you know that?”

“You aren’t the only one skipping Donnelly’s 2AM lecture right now,” The boy smiles. “I remembered that you raised your hand when he asked if anyone in the room wasn’t here because their major required it, and that you said you were majoring in Computer Science, but either way, do you know how to use a jukebox? I’ve already selected the song, but I can’t get it to play.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure.” Richard gets up and sits down across from the boy, hunching over to look at the jukebox. He presses one of the buttons, and _How Soon Is Now?_ by The Smiths begins to play.

“Thank you so much -” The boy begins.

“Oh! You switched tables,” Meredith chuckles, setting down Richard’s fries and coffee. “Threw me for a loop there, honey!” Meredith says as she walks off to another table.

The boy looks at Meredith, wide eyed at the mistake. He looks back at Richard. “You can move, if you want, I won’t be offended.”

“Uh, no, that’s fine. Unless you want me to?” Richard’s hands hadn’t moved from the jukebox yet.

“No, it’d be lovely if you stayed,” The boy puts his hand out. “Jared.” 

“Richard,” He replies, shaking the boy’s - Jared’s - hand. “But you probably already knew that.”

“I did,” Jared smiles.

“So, uh, what brings you here?” Richard gestures at their neon-lit tiled surroundings.

“If I said nothing, would you believe me?”

“No. Nobody goes to a diner at two in the morning without a reason, Jared.” 

“I… Had lunch with someone today.” Jared reaches for his glass and the way he holds it in front of his body seems to make him shrink, like suddenly Jared isn’t a college student anymore, but a child.

“Oh, um, are you okay?”

“Yes! I’m fine,” Jared puts his juice down. “Honestly, it was only my third worst familial encounter.” 

“That’s… Good?” Richard says.

“What about you?”

“Oh -” Richard shakes his head, smiling without meaning it. “You don’t want to hear me whine.”

Jared smiles again. “It’s the least I could do after you got this to work,” He points to the jukebox with his spoon as he gets a bite of oatmeal.

“Um. Okay then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you though.”

“So, uh,” Richard begins, eloquently, grabbing various sugar and salt packages from their little container in the corner, breaking them open. “In case you couldn’t tell, I was a weird kid. But like, that’s a given for most CS Majors.” He pours the powders out onto the table, watching the grains fall. “Except for Brogrammers, of course.”

“Of course,” Jared replies, but he isn’t making fun of Richard. He’s listening.

Richard begins to draw little swirls in the salt/sugar mix. “And being a weird kid, I didn’t have fun in school. But it wasn’t - it wasn’t an extraordinary amount of no fun, it was the usual, which is honestly pretty sad because that means there’s other people who _also_ feel like this, and this feels like shit. Here’s the thing though,” Richard whispers this last part. “I thought it would go away by now.”

Jared nods.

“I mean, everyone tells the weird kids to ‘just wait ‘till college, you’ll find your people and your place in college!' and I - I was like king of the weirds, so odd and so strange that only one person ever wanted to hang out with me,” Richard continues to make fractal-like patterns in the salt and sugar, and he can’t help but pity the waiter who’ll have to clean up his mess later. 

“But all those times people, counsellors, my parents looked at me and said stuff like ‘Don’t worry, guys like you are _cool_ in college!’ got into my head, and it got me thinking ‘Okay, what I need to do is get good grades, and focus, and then I can go to some far away land like I don’t know, fucking _New York_ , and once I get there, I’ll be okay. I’ll be cool, I’ll be _wanted_.” Richard’s hand twitches, and he manages to draw a line all the way through the designs he’s created, probably gets salt and sugar in Jared’s oatmeal while he’s at it.

“I spent all of highschool in some Gatsby-like haze chasing this light at the end of the tunnel only for me to get here and find a dying firefly emitting it. I’m back to square one, I don’t feel wanted, or cool, or anything really, and I can’t help but feel like -”

“You’re wrong,” Jared says, definitively. 

“What?” 

“Well, I mean, you’re right about some of those things,” Jared responds, his original thoughtfully unsure demeanor restored. “Putting all your stock into college probably wasn’t a good idea, but it clearly wasn’t your fault - I mean, we’re all impressionable in highschool.” He smiles a bit at that, but it isn’t happy. “But you were going to say that you are the common denominator in all of those experiences, right?”

Richard nods. 

“Well, I used to think the same thing, that is, until my court-appointed therapist sat me down, grabbed me by the shoulders, shook me, and said; ‘Of fucking course you’re the common denominator, Donald. You’re the common denominator in every part of your life - so if everything bad is your fault, then so is everything good.”

“Oh,” Richard said, taking all of what Jared just said in, both reassuring and slightly terrifying. “Wait, Donald?”

“They thought it was my birth name for a bit, it doesn’t matter.”

“Right,” Richard nods.

“So, that one friend you had? That’s your fault too.” Jared sips at his juice. “And it doesn’t matter whether or not my… encounter with my uncle was my fault or not, because if I hadn’t felt the way I did, I wouldn’t have cut our Ethics course, and we wouldn’t have met.

“And I like that we met. Even if my oatmeal does taste a bit odd now.”

“Oh. Uh, me also,” Richard cringes at his anxiety-grammar. “I also like that we met… Thank you, Jared.”

Jared smiles.

_How Soon Is Now?_ ends, and Richard finds himself smiling back.

**Author's Note:**

> "There is a famous painting, Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper. I am in love with that painting. Sometimes, I think everyone is like the people in that painting, everyone lost in their own private universes of pain or sorrow or guilt, everyone remote and unknowable. The painting reminds me of you. It breaks my heart." - benjamin alire saenz, aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe.


End file.
